In the automotive industry, the location of battery is usually concealed from direct access by applicants, such as next to engine covered by bonnet, underneath the seat or hidden in a casing. Some effort is needed to regularly access the said battery for visual inspection and physical testing. If the said battery deteriorates without any form of inspection or monitoring, the only time the applicant finds out about the deterioration is when the automotive vehicle fails to function. For example, the battery in a car has deteriorated through time and one day the condition of the said battery is so bad that the car fails to start. This can have serious financial, safety and time consequences to the applicants, depending on when and where the incident happens.
The aspect leading to the present invention is to ease applicants in monitoring the condition of battery in an automotive vehicle. The said automotive battery is typically concealed from direct applicant access. Due to the limited level of technical understanding and knowledge, it is very inconvenient, annoying and troublesome to most applicants that they would have to regularly remove the casing to reveal the said battery and visually inspect liquid electrolyte level and plate condition of the battery. Maintenance free automotive batteries cannot be visually inspected to know the condition of liquid electrolyte level and plate condition. In most cases, the applicants have no technical knowledge and equipment to even check the condition of maintenance free automotive batteries. A known method is to isolate the maintenance free automotive battery from the vehicle and use a special charge level test instrument that applies a load to the said battery. Such an instrument is expensive and usually found only in automotive workshops. By applying load to the said battery, the condition of the said battery can be known quite accurately but with the expense of further degrading the condition of the said battery.
Because of constrains imposed by inspecting method, unit cost and installation processes, it has not been commercially acceptable to attempt to provide automotive battery condition indication using conventional battery loading test method while eliminating the need to physically inspect the battery. The present invention provides an apparatus to monitor and indicate automotive battery conditions, such as liquid electrolyte level, stored charge level and plate condition, using ripple voltage present in battery supply line, therefore does not degrade the automotive battery in the process.